Nightwatch
by DyrneKeeper
Summary: Mid DH, possible spoilers. On guard in the night, Hermione can't keep herself from thinking.


Author: DyrneKeeper  
Characters: Hermione, Harry, Ron  
Rating: Teen  
Summary: Mid-DH. On guard in the night, Hermione can't keep herself from thinking.  
Disclaimer: Not mine.

-&-

During the day, during the planning, during the fleeing, there is no room and no time for thought, and it's easier that way, easier not to dwell on things. But on guard in the night, sleepless in the darkness, the thoughts come to her, unbidden and unwelcome.

It was very likely that _he_ would be killed. It was even more likely that she and Ron would be killed, something that she was slowly but steadily coming to terms with. They simply didn't have the power he had. It was an idea that couldn't be realized all at once, she thought; it had to slowly sink into your consciousness; something you had to cry yourself to sleep with for many nights; something you had to carry around in you head for days, weeks, months, until at some point you _knew_ it to be true, you really and truly appreciated the terrible majesty of such a future, and you couldn't imagine a time when your brain had not bullied your heart into submission like this.

She didn't believe in anything anymore. There was nothing left to believe in. No innocence, no faith, no hope, only determination, terrible life-draining courage and sacrifice—all for a chance. A single chance.

When had the war become real? _Sirius._ He had needed to lose someone like that, to make it real to him. Cedric's death had carried with it terror, and trauma, but with the death of Sirius was grief, and horror, and anguish. One was the matter of terrible dreams, the other of heartbreak and a living nightmare from which he would never really wake. It was not that real to Ron or to herself, and it was cruel that way, and unfair. But it was necessary. And for that it was different now than in the wars of Muggle history. Now, one single champion, flawed and damaged in a dozen ways, heartbroken and terrified. No declaration of hostilities to make it neat, no generals, no clear line of battle. No chance of peaceful capitulation; this was all or nothing.

And they were soldiers in that war now. Even less than soldiers. "Soldier" inferred part of a greater whole, part of an organization. There was no organization here. They were all pawns, simply pawns, tossed about and manipulated and sacrificed on some board they couldn't see, playing by rules that were never clear and directed by some nameless power they didn't know. It was more than fate.

_Sacrifice. _Such a word, wrought with the sense of everything from pagan rituals to heroic selflessness. She'd read enough, she understood. Or she'd thought she did. Sacrifice._"The forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value." _Such a _choice!_

Ron had sacrificed himself, six years ago. He had been twelve, and he had chosen to give himself up to give _him_ a chance. He had been twelve. Now at eighteen she knew how extraordinary that was...Twelve was so young. A child. At twelve both of them had been willing to die. How many more sacrifices would be demanded of them before this was over?

She would follow him anywhere. She would do anything to help him, to protect him. She was even willing to...

But she was eighteen. An eighteen year old shouldn't have to die for anyone. She didn't want to die. More than that, she wanted to live.

There is a difference there, between not wanting to die and wanting to live. The lesser of two evils and the greater of two goods that stop being trite phrases and instead claim your body and your heart and your _soul._

But at eighteen, what kind of life does one have? Not much, really. It has been so short. So little has really happened. So little has been established. If one dies at eighteen, who grieves? Parents. A handful of friends. Maybe a sibling. What is lost? A student. _A future. _No. If one dies at forty-eight, who grieves then? Parents still, perhaps. But then there is the husband. The wife. The children. The dear, wide circle of friends a lifetime has earned.

There was less pain when one died young.

Oh, it was clinical. It was a terribly clinical way of looking at the world. But even if it was terrible it made _sense_. Sense could be accepted; and this was something that very much needed to be accepted. Yes, she could die, and it would be better if she died young. But _he_ could not die. If he was gone, it was all over.

Sometimes Ron had held her when she cried, and she didn't even have the strength to feel ashamed or to want to be strong. She didn't feel safe in his arms; she wasn't safe. Nothing was safe. But she felt...protected. But then Ron had left, leaving her and leaving _him_, and now there was nothing to protect her at all anymore, nothing except her brains and her books. And the thoughts that came at night were different.

At first all she felt was anger about their lot. About _his_ lot. About the cruelty and the unfairness and the unnecessity of it all. Why? Why him? Why them? Why...this? This darkness and this war that took _everything_? Took love and loyalty and the friendship that was never supposed to end in betrayal? But as time stretched on, into weeks and months, she didn't ask those questions anymore. There was...no use. Some questions simply had no answer. The anger didn't hurt anything but her own heart. The numbness wasn't callousness; it was self-preservation. Dull sadness, denial, resignation, were better than anger, she told herself. She needed a level head; she needed to be able to sleep at night, and to fight, and plan, and flee, during the day. She needed to be able to look _him_ in the eye without flinching at the hurt and the emptiness there and without him seeing the same in her own eyes.

After her watches she may have wept herself to sleep, but at least she slept.

-&-


End file.
